Ice King Have I Got So Insane That Im Sane Again
By · Published on March 5th, 2019
Beware: serious spoilers below for the entirety of Adventure Time.
Adventure Timeis a gift of a show. It's remarkable for several reasons, not to the lowest degree of all its near-perfect series finale last yr.
Just maybe its most hit merits to fame is its growth in scope and maturity from a fun kids' drawing to an emotionally rich saga. And its nigh effective — and about enduring — leap in this direction is its empathetic treatment of Ice King, the erstwhile goofy villain.
Ice King begins Adventure Time'due south run as the bad guy, a crazy old wizard obsessed with kidnapping and marrying princesses, whom our heroes Finn and Jake perpetually trounce into submission. He's a niggling bit evil, but mostly he'southward ineffectual, silly, and sorry.
In Season 3, however, his tragic backstory begins to unfold. It'south revealed that he was once Simon Petrikov, a kind and brilliant academic who stumbled beyond a magical crown a thousand years ago. The crown kept him live through the nuclear holocaust that wiped out near of humanity (bad news for u.s.a., since it becomes apparent that this devastated past is our present), and it gave him the ability to protect Marceline, the orphaned child he adopted in the wasteland of the world. Every time he wore the crown, however, his grip on his sanity loosened a little more than, until he completely lost his sense of cocky and became Ice Rex.
This information is doled out in remarkably few episodes, and they are arguably the show's finest. Marker some of the earliest forays into more serious themes, they succinctly and elegantly tell a story of loss and cede that delivers more character evolution than yous tin milkshake a stick at.
Information technology's too helped, in no modest function, by the incomparable vocalization piece of work of Tom Kenny (aye, SpongeBob) who plays both Simon and Ice Rex with beautifully subtle differences that are all the more striking when you witness his transformation from i to the other.
In the present, adult Marceline has trouble coping with Water ice Rex'southward madness and retentivity loss. Their relationship has all the notes of living with a loved one who has dementia, except both Ice King and Marceline are immortal, and she'due south been living with it for a chiliad years. Information technology'southward enough to make anyone cramp.
Afterwards the stellar Season 4 episode "I Call back Y'all," notwithstanding, Marceline warms toward Ice King. She begins to appreciate the person he is for the sake of the person he was, and as she shares his story with her friends, they practise too. Finn and Jake treat him much more kindly, calling him Simon, inviting him to parties, and even letting him motion in with them. This alter has a profound effect on Ice Male monarch — he stops kidnapping women, his drastic loneliness wanes, and he all but loses his position as the show'due south villain.
He's notwithstanding goofy and pitiful, but he'south a real person. And a sympathetic ane at that.
Information technology'south a change that'southward built-in out of compassion — Water ice Male monarch's friends care for him well for Simon's sake — but it has the unexpected effect of encouraging him to be less pitiable.
Considering, importantly, Water ice King never remembers his by identity. A handful of times nosotros encounter Simon'south consciousness trapped inside, but Water ice King is unaware of him to the end. They are, for all intents and purposes, two separate people. So when Water ice King responds positively to kindness and friendship, it'southward completely his own doing.
This creates a bit of an odd loop. Ice King'due south friends care for him better because of the person he used to be, just in doing and then they assistance improve the person he is. Through their pity for someone they see equally a production of madness, they reveal that madness's humanity.
Simply that's a hard pill for people to consume. Whenever Water ice King shows signs of reform or growth, they tend to see it as Simon shining through. This only increases the intensity of the loop, as treating Ice Male monarch more than like the person he was equally Simon allows him to slip more easily into the role. Information technology's a clear lesson in empathy that's signaled strongly by the show, fifty-fifty if the characters often miss it.
No 1 is more than guilty of missing it than Betty, Simon's fiancee, whose obsession with curing him consumes her life.
When Betty commencement enters the show in Season 5, her presence is a glimmer of hope, a wildcard tucked away in the background, fix to change things radically only as soon as she'southward called upon. She vows to reverse the crown'south effects, and she seems capable enough to do it. And Simon, in a fleeting moment of clarity, agrees to continue living every bit Ice King for as long equally it takes her to figure out how to save him.
Merely somewhere along the way, Betty's efforts sour. She sacrifices her past, her present, and even her own sanity all in the proper name of restoring his retentivity, and none of information technology works. Meanwhile, Ice Male monarch flourishes on his ain, becoming a vital (if even so goofy and sad) office of Ooo, and i of the show'due south most beloved characters.
These conflicting arcs come to a head in the Season ix "Elements" miniseries. Ostensibly a straightforward struggle to save Ooo from a bad instance of magic-gone-incorrect, at its core "Elements" is about Ice Male monarch's personal growth clashing against Betty's insistence on restoring him to what he was.
Afterward years of failed attempts, Betty decides to try "the direct approach," asking Ice King out on a date. Immediately responding positively to the attention, he gets himself a bespoke accommodate, he stops visibly wearing his crown, and he even gets a pair of footling circular spectacles he wears depression on his nose.
He looks, for all the earth, like he did when he was Simon.
And his coherence increases tremendously. He rescues the kidnapped Betty (a telling reversal of his original Yard.O.), he'due south committed to restoring club to Ooo, and he's genuinely helpful and pulled together — if a little loose around the edges. He looks and acts the part; it'southward so tempting to believe that his memories are resurfacing and that Simon is coming back.
Betty'southward certainly tempted to believe it, and who could blame her?
Just it's not true, and Betty's try to accept him crumbles into thwarting and agony every bit she realizes that even this sane-ish human being in a suit is not the fiance she used to know. That desperation leads her to beguile Finn and use the magic gems he's collected not to set the nowadays to rights, merely to alter the by. She tin't come to terms with the person Simon has become, so she makes a last ditch effort to make information technology so he never changed.
"People say you shouldn't live in the by. But I say: Why not!" Betty preaches. She has big plans to open a portal to the past and drop Ice King's crown in a volcano, making it so he never existed. She really gets on a roll with her programme to brand everything amend, speculating that she might even avert the Great Mushroom War, the nuclear holocaust of a grand years ago.
Our favorite inter-dimensional losers Prismo and the Cosmic Owl are horrified past this last point, and we should be, likewise. We don't need to worry as much about paradoxes and timelines, but the implications of a world without that cataclysm are dreary. (We even saw information technology at the beginning of Season 5). The war may have been a real bummer for everyone involved at the time, but something beautiful eventually came out of it. It's how we got Finn and Jake. It's how we got magic. It's how we got Risk Time. Things got ameliorate and the world healed itself, not past going back to what it once was, merely past becoming something different.
Changing history so drastically would practise away not only with Water ice King, but with everyone we know and honey.
And and then Betty's insistence on altering the past, rather than saving the present, is inherently astern. It comes from a place of love, and it's hard to mistake her for it, but inside the show, it simply can't stand.
The person who realizes this and saves the day is, fittingly enough, Ice Rex. Possessed with newfound cocky-worth (born out of everyone's new efforts to accept him seriously) he stands up for himself and delivers the most moving line in his long history:
"Lady, this Simon sounds cool, but I'm Water ice King. I estimate I'm a special person, and I am worthy of respect."
He short circuits Betty's magic and saves himself and Ooo, blowing up his bespoke accommodate in the procedure. His become-to blue muumuu bursts back out into existence, revealing the bizarre fact that he had it on underneath the whole time. Information technology's a fun gag, merely it's also proof that Ice King was himself all along. Simon'due south memories were never informing his actions; he was merely responding, every bit people often do, to existence treated well. He was shown respect, and he found respect for himself, and that respect is what saved the day.
When he returns to his "Classic Ice Rex" look as he calls it, he'due south no less the person he was. If annihilation, he's much more.
Meanwhile, Betty's obsession with curing Simon becomes fifty-fifty more destructive. In the series finale she summons Golb, an all-powerful being of chaos, and very nearly ends life in Ooo, thus completing her transformation from signal of hope to ultimate villain, the final boss in a decade-long string of dungeon fights.
As ever, Betty'south intentions are proficient, but the show insists that no good can come of them. Restoring Simon, while a noble cause, is tantamount to killing Ice King, a character we started to love for Simon's sake just have since come to love for his own. It'southward a theme of saving-turned-murder that's extrapolated several times into the devastation of the world as we know information technology.
This brings us to the interesting question of what it means to "heal" someone at all.
Eye color is a telling characteristic inAdventure Time.Well-nigh characters — humans, in particular — have black dots for eyes. It's a pleasantly simple pattern that carries a lot of weight when it varies, such as with characters who've had their minds contradistinct by magic, whose eyes are always white.
Magic Human has these eyes. And so does Peppermint Butler (always a devout student of the Night Arts). And so does Ice Rex, and so does Betty, after she acquires Magic Man'due south power and starts to lose her grip on reality.
And, critically, so does Simon. The very first time we encounter Simon in "Holly Jolly Secrets Part 2," his optics are white, while in an erstwhile photograph of him and Betty, they're blackness, suggesting that the crown has already started to transform him.
But every other time we meet Simon — when the crown's powers are negated, when he's in his own head, even when we wink back to his life with Betty before he found the crown, his eyes are yet white. Simon was a scholar of arcane magic, after all, and this flashback, in particular, suggests his mind was already beingness altered without whatsoever help from the crown.
But that'southward not necessarily a bad matter.
In the series finale, Ice Male monarch, Betty, and Finn are swallowed by Golb and slowly digested downwards to their "almost essential forms." Betty loses her magic and madness, and Water ice King reverts to original Simon — pocket foursquare, bowtie, elbow patches… and white eyes. It's hard to qualify only what it means to exist your virtually essential self, but for Simon, that apparently means being but a little bit unhinged.
And information technology makes sense. Magic or no magic, this pure form of Simon has still lost the woman he loved, wandered through a postal service-apocalyptic wasteland, sacrificed himself in increments to save his adoptive daughter, and spent a thousand years trapped in a labyrinth in his head.
Betty may accept lost her mind over a short time by force of volition, but Simon has had some serious life experience.
In a like vein, Finn's missing arm isn't restored by this digestion process, either. Ane of Adventure Time'due south more than fascinating threads of continuity is the fact that no matter the timeline or incarnation, the essence that is Finn e'er loses his right arm. And that's okay. Only like Simon, he isn't "made whole" in an easy sense, and the things that have made him who he is aren't expunged.
The show has a articulate lesson to teach: your about essential cocky might non necessarily exist your simplest or your earliest iteration. Trauma can exist edifying, and alter can be a vital part of condign who you are.
Just if Simon's essential form is already altered by magic and by ordeal, and then who exactly has Betty been trying to salve? It'due south an added layer of futility to her struggle, a reminder that achieving her goal wouldn't only kill Water ice King, it would alter the person Simon has become, too.
Both of them may have changed, only neither of them is in need of changing back.
The fact remains, however, that Simon and Ice Rex can't be at the same fourth dimension. They are two unique consciousnesses in i body, and prioritizing ane would doom the other. Whether by accident or by blueprint, Adventure Time'southward greatest lesson in empathy backed it somewhat into a corner. 1 of the audience's oldest and most fervent wishes is to run across Simon restored, but to do so would substantially kill Ice Male monarch, a character the audience knows and loves much ameliorate.
What can you practice?
You do precisely what Adventure Timedoes in its series finale. Unable to carelessness Simon or destroy Ice Rex in good conscience, it splits them. Simon is digested past Golb merely long enough for his body and mind to exist restored, and then he's rescued. And so the earth is without an Ice King for all of 30 seconds, until the crown, in search of a new master, finds Gunter the penguin.
And Gunter'southward deepest, truest wish is, it turns out… to exist Ice Male monarch.
It'southward a lovely echo of the original Gunther, a little dinosaur whose wish millions of years agone to exist similar his teacher started this whole crown business.
And more than chiefly, it's a chance for Ice King to live on. He may look a lilliputian dissimilar, but he's got the same vocalism, muumuu, and penchant for drumming. And since the first words out of his mouth are "Say, where'south Gunter?" it'due south clear that his penguin memories and identity are gone.
As far as we need to be concerned, he is Water ice King.
If the show'due south improver of Ice Male monarch's backstory was its first sign of maturity and depth, this decision is a sign of something much greater. Rather than adhering to the knee-jerk solution (and possibly the original goal) of healing Ice King and reverting him to the person he in one case was, it respects the worth and the autonomy of both characters, and it gives them both a chance at a happy catastrophe.
And they both get information technology, to an extent. Whether the new Ice Male monarch is a petty better with the ladies, or it'south just a logical step in his improving self-respect, he finally marries a princess. Simon has a tougher interruption (Betty sacrifices herself to save him and Ooo) but his memory and sanity — whatsoever that ways — are restored for good.
Glimpses further into the hereafter suggest trouble — Water ice Male monarch somewhen turns into a monster and a new kind of antagonist, and Simon launches his ain impossible crusade to salve Betty — merely that's in keeping with the spirit of the finale. At that place are no true endings, happy or otherwise. Things change, people evolve, and no one time is more real than another.
And while the future of Ooo is dark and uncertain, the end of the finale shows a more peaceful and quotidian present — Ice King and Simon living side by side, having a prissy night in with their family unit.
It'southward virtually the happiest ending we could wish for, and the only reasonable solution to a mounting problem that the show built for itself every bit it matured by leaps and bounds over the years.
Adventure Time did a lot of things superbly over its 10-season run, but its empathetic and evolving handling of Ice Rex might be its best. It'due south one thing to give your mad villain a tragic past… it's another to utilise that tragedy to cultivate his madness into its own viable graphic symbol. Its commitment to Water ice King'south growth is beautiful, and its answer to his and Simon's autonomy is perhaps the greatest case, amongst many corking examples, of but how much the show grew up, and how much information technology had to teach u.s.a..
Related Topics: Adventure Time
Liz Baessler is a frequent contributor and infrequent columnist at Pic Schoolhouse Rejects. She has an MA in English and a lot of time on her easily. (She/Her)
Recommended Reading
'Adventure Time: Distant Lands' Lets One of Its Finest Characters Shine
The structure of the episode is obvious at times, but BMO remains uniquely delightful.'Adventure Time' and the Art of the Serial Finale
TV's finest "kids' show" ended with an exquisite and grown-up lesson in closure and acceptance.The Best Television receiver Episodes of 2018
The year's best episodes broke our hearts, made the states laugh, and above all, surprised us.Source: https://filmschoolrejects.com/adventure-time-ice-king/
Post a Comment for "Ice King Have I Got So Insane That Im Sane Again"